One Summer

There are two kinds of readers: those who love Bill Bryson and those who haven't met him yet... Colorful, rollicking and sweet, this is Bryson being Bryson. Which is to say: marvelous. -- People A glorious look at one summer in America...Bryson offers delicious detail and breathtaking suspense about events whose outcomes are already known. -- Booklist, Starred Review This splendid book, written in the breezy and humorous style that has come to be Bryson's trademark, is sure to delight readers steeped in the history of the period as well as those looking to acquaint themselves with it for the first time. --The Associated Press Bryson will set you right in this canter through one summer of one year that--once you've turned the final page--will seem more critical to American history than you might have reckoned before... [He] is a master of the sidelong, a man who can turn obscurity into hilarity with seemingly effortless charm--and One Summer is an entertaining addition to a body of work that is at its best when it celebrates the unexpected and the obscure... This is a jolly jalopy ride of a book; Bryson runs down the byways of American history and finds diversion in every roadside stop. -- Financial Times .. .Bryson himself is captivated by the events of summer, 1927. And why not? They included Charles Lindbergh's solo flight over the Atlantic, Sacco and Vanzetti's execution, Gutzon Borglum's start on the sculpting of Mt. Rushmore, the Dempsey-Carpentier fight, and Babe Ruth's 60 home runs--all of which Bryson covers in characteristically sparkling prose. -- Publishers Weekly As a historian, Bryson is the antithesis of stuffy. He's a storyteller, pure and simple, and One Summer is a collection of a great many tales about people and events, centered on (but not limited to) a single season in a single year... Bryson could have written a book just as interesting about the summer of 1949 or 1913. That'sn